In The Beginning
by caitythelioness
Summary: It was the first time Dr. James Wilson ever cried over a patient. And it was the first time Dr. Gregory House comforted him. Needless to say, it would also be the last. :A 'when they first met' type scenario. One-shot, complete.:


_Disclaimer: May I start by saying that House is sheer brilliance? And none of said brilliance could ever belong to me. It would be like...a preschooler mixing it up with Picasso. Thus, I own nothing. _

_Author's Note: My first House fic! For a long while these characters have intimidated me and I thought it beyond the realms of possible that I could come up with something I would be happy sharing. I'm still not convinced, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated. But regardless...I hope you enjoy!_

**In The Beginning...**

"I'm sorry," Doctor James Wilson said, risking an upward glance from the security of his file. The sight of her hopeless, defeated face was enough to make him wish he hadn't. "There's nothing more that we can do."

Silence.

More silence.

Then crinkling bed sheets as a mother leans in to clutch a dying daughter, creaking metal as a father grips at the bedpost, wishing he could take this burden as his own. Wilson gave a clipped, sorry smile to the floor so as to excuse himself, and left the room. He wasn't wanted there anymore. Once welcomed as a saviour, he was now nought but the bringer of sorry news, not needed once this family had started to grieve.

He bumped into several people in the corridor on the way back to his office, and once there, locked the door firmly behind him. He started haplessly around for a few moments, fruitlessly wishing a secret bottle of some stiff spirit to appear. Although if he began that habit, he reasoned, it would be a very short elevator ride down to the AA meetings. James was confused – he'd been excellent at 'Time-To-Tell-Someone-They're-Dying-101' at college. No one could quite match the sympathetic look in his eye, or the perfect words that flowed so effortlessly. Yet in this, his mere third experience of telling a patient that the mutated cells their body housed were simply beyond eradication, there was a definite tremble to his hands, and a peculiar feeling in his chest.

He was upset. He was actually upset.

He took a deep breath, but it was too late. He had realised his emotion, and now the tears simply wouldn't stop rolling embarrassingly down his cheeks. So young. Such a young life that he had ruined today. Repulsed by the echo of his own pathetic sobs, he frantically wiped his face and stepped out into the tiny courtyard attached to his office. One day, all things permitting, he would quite like to occupy the office above his own – the one with the spacious balcony reserved especially for Heads of Departments. The additional height would make nights such as this even more spectacular – a crisp, clean sky with a cold distant moon. It shone brightly, making eerie shadows. He remembered the first time he had kissed a girl under a full moon. Such youthful promiscuity that his patient would never know. It was just such a waste, he thought, as tears once more sprang horribly to his eyes. A terrible, pitiful waste.

"Didn't realise you had a lunar cycle." A sudden rough voice sounded behind him and James whirled. The wily, older looking doctor he had only met briefly was lounging in the sturdy wooden chair tucked away in the corner of the courtyard.

"What are you doing in my office?" Furious and ashamed, the words came out like needles, sharper than he meant. The other man, however, didn't blink.

"Technically not your office," he replied. "I needed a little escape to nature."

Wilson was sceptical. "There's an entire campus out there, and you have to 'escape' to my twelve square feet?"

The other man – House, James remembered suddenly – shrugged indifferently. "I like this twelve feet the best."

"It's a private courtyard attached to my office," he retorted, disbelief creating a minute peak in his voice.

House pulled a face of mock thoughtfulness. "Still, it has a certain charm…"

"My _locked_ office!" Wilson interjected incredulously.

Again House shrugged. "You say locked, I say…" He paused. "…Access challenged."

Completely stunned, Wilson couldn't formulate the words to vocalise his absolute amazement at not only catching House in his office, but at the man's boisterous lack of embarrassment, nay, remorse. Relishing the younger doctor's astonished silence (and knowing the exact reason for it), House pressed his advantage. "Any particular reason you're out here crying like a dissatisfied housewife?"

James felt a pulse of cold dread clench his stomach, toyed for a split-second about making a response, and then decided firmly against it. House, however, wasn't going to let it slide. Rearranging his lanky frame on the unforgiving chair, he gave an amused smile. "Girlfriend leave you?"

Wilson didn't say anything.

"Wife leave you?"

He was determined not to speak.

"Mistress leave you?"

There was a certain feeling of being hunted, here.

"Boyfriend leave you?"

James could almost hear the crinkle of laughter in his voice, and it was accompanied by a little stab of anger.

"Sexually confused transvestite lea-"

"Her name is Elizabeth, but her friends call her Betty. She's sixteen. She likes painting and old movies. She was going to marry a man wearing a plum velvet suit, her favourite colour is blue and she probably won't live to see this Christmas." A torrent of barred information burst forth from his mouth, and whilst it wasn't at all his intention, at least it had shut the horrible man up.

There was a long pause. Wilson wondered how pathetic he had sounded. House sized the other man up with a neither critical nor sympathetic eye.

"The first thing they teach you in Medical School is anatomy," He said after a few more long moments. "You know, how to tell the difference between your legs and your labia."

Despite himself, Wilson let out a little huff of amusement. House continued.

"The first thing they should teach is objectivity. If you can't be objective, it doesn't matter what you can do with a stethoscope, you're going to be a crappy doctor."

"Are you saying that I can't be objective? Are you saying I'm a crappy doctor?" James was immediately on the defensive, even given his position.

"_True_ objectivity," House asserted, as though Wilson was being thick. "There's being objective and crying in your private courtyard, or there's being truly objective. Symptoms, diagnoses, cures. Just science and medical relevance. That's all that matters. That's how you be a good doctor."

"What about compassion?" James counteracted. "Humanity? Isn't that what brought you to medicine?"

House pulled a face, his nose crinkling in disgust. "I hate people. I love puzzles. People happen to live when I solve puzzles. It's unfortunate and I'd rather let them die, but I need the money to fund my smack habit."

Wilson disregarded House's diffusive outlandishness. "That's it? Puzzles and money? That's all you care about?"

"That and cable." House looked up at the shocked silence, the expression on James' face turning his own into a contemptuous mask. "What, I'm meant to actually care? I meant to want to save people? Give me a break."

Confused and embarrassed, Wilson stayed silent once again. He was ashamed of his lack of restraint; unsettled by this confrontation; but mainly, still raw with his emotion. His sense of disassociated loss. "I couldn't save her," he whispered before he could stop himself. "I didn't save her. I fai-…" He couldn't bring himself to say the word. Suddenly overwhelmed again, he feared his voice might break.

There was a scraping sound – the courtyard chair. House had gotten up, and now stepped around James as if to head for the door.

"You're leaving?" Notwithstanding the detachment that radiated from this man, Wilson would have thought it beyond anyone to leave a fellow human being in distress.

"I find your emotion uninteresting. And there are no crisps left in your drawer anyway."

"You find my compassion _boring_?" James could no longer keep the incredulity – or the hurt – from his voice.

House's fist clenched a little, and he turned. "Yes," He said bitingly. "It's irrelevant, it clouds your judgement, it doesn't help you be a better doctor and it makes you look like a blithering idiot. If you saved every sick person you ever met, my five-bedroom flat with ensuite would be a pokey studio apartment, and as a lover of my space, yes, quite frankly, I find it irritating." House drew in a breath, seemingly finished with his tirade.

Keeping his eyes trained on the ground, James hoped he didn't look as injured as he felt. He squeezed them shut, waiting, hoping that when he opened them, he would find himself alone again, or back in time, and this whole dastardly scenario had never happened. After a few moments of silence, though, House spoke again, his voice with a less razored edge.

"Patients die," He said bracingly. "That's their nature. They die regardless of whether you know when their birthdays are, or whom their high school crush is, or what they wanted to do with their life. This job is a gamble. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. But emotion doesn't help you play the game." James fidgeted, uncomfortable with the terminology, but House ignored him. "Objectivity. Calculation. Reason. Fact. Logic. That's how you win. Crying because she won't make Christmas – that's how you lose."

There was yet another silence as Wilson pondered the older doctor's words. He may be right. Or he may be wrong. But James knew why he was here, and it was because he cared. He wanted to save people. Empathy was the cornerstone of his practice, and he wouldn't change it now. But House was right – he had let go of the medical fact. He had been blinded by his own feeling, and already he felt foolish. It wouldn't happen again. His cheeks were dry, as if never kissed by tears.

"I'm Greg House." House finally introduced himself gruffly, extending a long-fingered hand.

"James Wilson." He replied, and took it.

"You can buy me lunch tomorrow," House said, and sauntered out of the room. And Wilson couldn't help it. A tiny smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.


End file.
